Board Sets Budget Guidelines

AVON — The board of finance has set spending-limit guidelines for the town's education and municipal budgets in advance of next year's budget vote.

After voters defeated the initial town spending plans in each of the past three referendum seasons, board members decided to set the nonbinding guidelines for spending increases using the average of the amounts that voters approved in 2002, 2003 and earlier this year.

The targets for 2005-06 call for a spending increase of no more than 5.5 percent, or about $1.843 million, for the board of education, and a spending increase of no more than 4.5 percent, or about $688,000, for the town's municipal operating budget, said board of finance chairman Tom Harrison.

``These numbers are guidelines, not legally binding. And if the boards come in at them, there's no guarantee that's what we would recommend,'' he said. ``But we think these are realistic numbers based on what the voters have approved over the last three years.''

The board set the guidelines by a 5-1 vote earlier this week.

Richard Hines, chairman of the town council, said he did not know how voters would react if the school board and town council stayed within the guidelines. ``It's hard to say what the voters would say, realistically.'' Voters, he added, would always want the smallest budget possible.

Board of education chairwoman Peggy Roell said it is difficult to say at this point what level of spending the schools will need. ``It's too early to tell, because we haven't started preparing our budget, and the teachers' contract is still being negotiated,'' she said.

Avon voters defeated the town budget for the first time in 2002, and then went on to reject the initial town budgets in 2003 and 2004 as well. It took three referendums this year before voters approved a budget.

Harrison said that the finance board reviewed what voters eventually approved and found that they were willing to approve different levels of spending increases for the board of education and municipal services.

The average annual spending increase for the schools over three years was 6.01 percent, or about $1.79 million. For municipal spending, the average annual increase over three years was 4.95 percent, or about $685,000, he said. The board set slightly lower numbers because the increases approved by voters have been dropping over the past few years.

Harrison said the board considered setting the guidelines based on factors such as the consumer-price index or a cost-of-living adjustment. But the board decided those factors were arbitrary, and instead attempted to set guidelines for spending increases that might make voters comfortable, he said.